I Couldn't Let You Save Me
by MrsWhovian
Summary: Clara relives one of her particularly painful deaths. Post 'The Name Of The Doctor'. WARNING: Discussion of rape.


**I Couldn't Let You Save Me**

Clara could remember all of her different lives. She couldn't remember everything that happened in all of her lives, but she could remember at least one detail from each of them.

Except for one.

There was one life that she remembered very well, but not for a good reason. It was from a life in 2010 London, when she saved her Doctor; the eleventh Doctor.

That was the life that came to her in her nightmares. Nightmares that the Doctor didn't know about until she stopped over in the TARDIS one night.

They had just left the fields of Axhitylor, where they had been captured and imprisoned in the planet's prison. The guards hadn't hurt them, but their way of controlling the prisoners was to periodically cover them in a goo which they had called 'Julipay'. Whatever it was, it wasn't pleasant. But either way, there was no way that Clara could go back to the Maitland's looking like she did, and so, _just this once_, she stayed overnight while her dress was cleaned.

The Doctor was in the console room when he heard her screaming. He immediately dropped the tool that he was using and ran into the room that she was sleeping in.

When he opened the door, it took all his control not to cry out himself. Clara was tangled up in the bed sheets, desperately trying to pull her arms free, tossing and turning; screaming so loud that her voice was starting to crack.

The Doctor quickly moved over to her and gently pulled her arms free so that she would feel less trapped, before running his hand across her face, calling her name to wake her up, but not expecting the reaction he got.

Clara sat bolt upright in bed, her eyes taking a few seconds to adjust. But when she focused on the Doctor, she appeared to get more agitated.

"Run! Run Doctor, please you have to get away! Leave me now, before he gets you! I'm trying to stop him! Get away get away get away, please you have to run!"

The Doctor grabbed her shoulders in an attempt to stop her pushing at him, whilst trying not to panic her further.

"It's okay, Clara, I'm safe, you're safe. We're in the TARDIS. We're the only ones here – you're perfectly fine."

Clara took a few deep breaths to try and calm herself, but her hands still trembled. As she slowly began to relax, she nodded, holding her arms out to the Doctor with an embarrassed look on her face, almost as if she was ashamed of what she was silently asking.

For once though, the Doctor cottoned on straight away, shifting next to her on the bed so that he could wrap his arms around her, holding her close, as she whispered very softly, and slightly broken,

"_I couldn't let you save me."_

The Doctor pulled away from her slightly to try and look at her, but she quickly averted her gaze.

"What do you mean?" he asked, almost afraid of the answer.

Clara took a deep breath.

"One of my lives was London, 2010. Sometimes you knew that you were in danger when I saved you, but this time you didn't. There was a man going round murdering people who he didn't like the look of. He was walking up behind you. He had a knife. I had to intervene."

She stopped as a sob threatened to escape, but she closed her eyes tightly and swallowed it down, focusing on the feel of the Doctor's hands rubbing small circles on her back.

"I tackled him, and it stopped him going after you. He dragged me into a small alleyway, and pulled all my clothes off."

The Doctor felt his hearts stop as he realised where this was going, but he didn't let himself speak in case it made Clara close up again. Instead, he tightened his grip ever so slightly as she began to speak again.

"It hurt so much. I'd never, you know, done it before, but he just forced himself into me. Every instinct in me was telling me to scream for you. You were close by. You would have helped. But if I did that then he would have killed you. So I stayed quiet because I knew that if I made a single sound then it would have been to shout you, and I couldn't risk it. But he wanted me to scream; he got off on it, so he turned me over and pushed into my, you know, _other place_. It was so much tighter, and he was so rough, and I was bleeding from both places, but _I couldn't make a sound_. Eventually he finished with me. He just left me lying there."

The Doctor, with tears streaming down his face pulled her closer.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered, "I'm so sorry that you had to die like that; that you had to die at all."

Clara shook her head.

"That didn't kill me," she murmured, glancing up at the confused look in his eyes.

"I died," she whispered, "Four months later, when I miscarried the baby that he had forced on to me. That's what hurt the most. At the time, I didn't have time to mourn the loss of my baby; I died so soon afterwards, but now I can remember, and it hurts so much."

With that she dissolved into tears, finally letting herself grieve for the baby that she had no choice in conceiving, and no choice in leaving.

"I am so sorry Clara," the Doctor muttered as he pulled her closer into his body, "But please, the next time that you have a nightmare, please scream for me, because we are both safe in the TARDIS now, and I will always be here. I wish I could have saved you, and I wish I could take away your pain, but you need to remember, my Impossible Girl, you are _not_ alone in this."

Clara nodded and closed her eyes.

And sure enough, when she awoke three hours later, screaming herself out of the nightmare of the time in the 1700s when she had to let the Clockwork Droids dissect her to save the Doctor and Madame de Pompadour, she was relieved to find that the Doctor was, as promised, already holding her close, calming her down, and _being there_.

For the first time in all her lifetimes, she didn't feel alone.


End file.
